Tips and tricks to help you reap the full benefits of Canva

Canva can be a creative powerhouse if you take the time to get to know it a little (maybe wine and dine it, show it a good time? Winkity Wink). The free version is great in itself, but if you are wanting to take your blogging to the next level, I highly recommend paying the $12/month to gain full access to its resources.

Below I’ve listed a few tips and tricks that have helped me lessen the time I spend fussing with my designs. Organization is key when it comes to creating quick, quality content. There’s nothing worse than spending hours on one simple graphic because you didn’t have the right tools at your disposal.

Please note that the tips below are based off of a paid account. Some of these features are not available on the free version.

First and foremost, familiarize yourself with your dashboard. Below you will see different sections you can customize according to your needs.

Pre-select the typefaces you want Canva to pull every time you insert text into your graphic by using the ‘fonts’ section of your dashboard. Below I have my Heading (Brooklyn) Sub-heading (Lora) and body font (Brandon) set up so that it saves me a bit of time. This will automate for you every time you populate a text box.

Next, if you aren’t uploading your own fonts to use for your graphics, get on it! DaFontoffers great fonts for free that will really make your designs pop. You are able to upload up to 25; which I think is pretty generous given the storage capacity. All you have to do is download the font, extract it (your computer will do this for you just by opening the file) and upload! Easy peasy.

You can see below some of the fonts that are my favorites at the moment. I am always changing my mind and getting rid of ones that I don’t use frequently. The beauty of uploaded fonts is you can change them whenever you want!

Let’s talk color palettes. Combos are KEY. I can’t tell you how many times I see great graphics with terrible color schemes. Search on Pinterest for different palettes that catch your eye. Every time I find a swatch that calls to me, I add the HEX codes into my ‘brand colors’ box. As you can see, I have them sectioned off into categories. Browns, Nudes, Pinks, etc…this helps me when I’m creating designs so that I can quickly preview what I’m doing using the colors I’ve added without having to go to several different sites.

By doing this, not only will you save yourself time, but you will have access to a wide array of color combos saved for multiple projects/uses. Any time you pull up a template, you will see all of your categories beautifully displayed and ready to use.

Next up: Save design elements as you come across them, Or invest in an external hard-drive. Whenever I find something cute online, I save it, even if I don’t have a use for it at that exact moment. I then save it to my external hard-drive for later, or upload it into Canva. Because of this, I have a collection of images that I can access whenever necessary. This has been a game-changer for me. You can also re-save them at any point by hovering over the image and clicking the ‘i’ when it appears. It will then give you the option to save or delete the object.

More options as you hover over the graphic!

Last but definitely not least, make sure you are taking advantage of Canva’s library of graphics. Yes, some of them are paid, but a good majority of them are FREE for you to use. Just search for what you need, whether it’s social media icons, charts, highlight cover icons, etc…I’m always pleasantly surprised by the variety of random items that they have.

I hope this helps you! Whatever it may be you’re aiming to do, these tips will help save you some time and get you organized. There’s nothing worse than needing 15 different tabs open for one project. I am always looking for ways to condense and minimize my projects so that I don’t get overwhelmed.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. Now go make something beautiful!